Dial - Season 2 - Episode 18

Episode 4 years ago

Dial - Season 2 - Episode 18

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And so, for the umpteenth time, I was left alone with the witch.

As I lay inside that canoe, odd things flitted through my mind in that semi-stupor condition I found myself in. It occurred to me, quite irrationally, that I had never asked her the name of the river. I could barely keep my eyes open as unconsciousness, for one reason or the other, tried to overtake me.
I felt so weak and light-headed, and just wanted to slip off to sleep as the dawn gradually approached. But I tried to keep my eyes open, because I knew that if I became unconscious the witch could not be able to get me up that incline, through the cocoa trees, and down to her home.

I saw her dimly as she moved. Draped in the ‘spiritual’ white cloth that Nana b0s0mba had given her, she indeed looked like a witch as she moved along the canoe, trying to push it further into the river.
And then, I heard her voice in the darkness, another voice, a voice I had been hoping to hear…

Abena Adobea.
“Mama!”
The witch stiffened, and I raised my head with a little effort and saw Abena Adobea approaching the canoe. She cut a dark indistinct figure to my fuddled eye as she approached. She had something like a bulky bag slung across her left shoulder. Her voice was soft, filled with remorse and unshed tears, quavering and uneven, not one semblance like the haughty voice I had hitherto been used to hearing.

“Maame!” she said again, and this time Maame Ntiriwaa paused, and then she then turned to look at her daughter.

“You’re no daughter of mine!” the woman said, her own voice quavering with pain. “Go away, please, and leave me alone!”

Abena Adobea uttered a strangled cry and rushed forward into the river, dropping to her knees and reaching out blindly to hold the witch’s left leg.

“Do not do this to me, I beg of you, my mother!” Abena Adobea wept bitterly. “I have wronged you. I have hurt you. But please, for the sake of the soul of my father, forgive your daughter!”
“Leave the name of my husband out of this!” Maame Ntiriwaa cried and violently pushed her daughter away from her. “Ah, Abena! Look at what you have done to this gentle man! I don’t know if he’s going to make it, or if he’s going to die! All he wanted to do was to get you to come back to me!”

“Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry!” Abena Adobea wept bitterly.

“I have suffered injustice, Adobea,” Maame Ntiriwaa said. “Humiliation now knows me by name! Pain and suffering are my bedfellows! My days are filled with bitterness and pain because all I wanted was to have my daughter back! But at what cost, Abena? At what cost? You want to be a Queen Mother, go on and be one! Go and marry your King and leave me alone!”
“Forgive me, my mother!” Abena Adobea cried hoarsely. “I was blinded! Yes, I have been gullible and greedy, but not anymore! I can’t stay a second longer in the presence of those men!”

“Then find somewhere to go, because you’re no longer my daughter!” Maame Ntiriwaa said bitterly, her voice breaking on a sob.

She turned and desperately pushed the canoe into the river.

“Hey, witch!” I cried weakly, hoarsely, and she reached out and put a hot, trembling hand on my neck gently, fondly.
“Oh, Yao!” she whispered tremulously. “You’re alive! You were so still I thought…”

Her voice broke, and she began to weep softly.
“Don’t tell me I’ve gone through all this torture for nothing!” I said in a dry voice.
“What are you talking about, Yao?” she whispered.

“Your daughter, you witch!” I said weakly. “If my torture brought her back, then accept her, so that one day when I look at the scars on my back I would know something good at least came out of it! I would know that yes, I brought a witch and her arrogant daughter together!”
“Yao, you don’t under –” she began softly.

“Cut it out, witch!” I said weakly. “If you’re not accepting her back then just dump me in the d--n river, and I’ll know I died whilst trying to bring back your daughter to you, you ungrateful old witch!”
And that broke her.

She leaned on the side of the canoe, and she began to weep bitterly.


Abena Adobea waded once more into the water toward her mother.
This time no words were necessary.
Mother and daughter reached out for each other, and they hugged tightly, and the sound of their combined weeping was a lullaby that washed over me as I lay inside the canoe of the witch…and unconsciousness finally won, and I slipped into darkness.
Pain…and relief…pain and relief!